FMC 3.0

A few quick travel notes:

Flying out of Philly didn’t suck this time. Getting to the airport, parking, check-in, security, and boarding were all a breeze, and not a horrendous experience. Then plane is pushed away from the gate, hit the lane, and did its self test. It then pulled back to the gate, with a mechanical problem. Obviously don’t want to fly with a problem, even a small one. Pilot says it should be a quick fix. 2 hours later, and after a move away from the gate for a plane that could actually fly, we’re taxiing to the runway. All the while with a more than reasonable number of small children screaming their heads off. Thankfully, I have the iPod functions built into my phone, and really good headphones to drown that kind of crap out.

I have mixed feelings on our rental car, but it is infinitely better than that PoS Jeep Liberty we had for this trip 2 years ago. This time around it’s a Mazda five. It’s not bad - has space, and a few nifty features. But I don’t fit into it as well as my Element (if anyone knows of a rental company that rents them, I wanna know about it.) The niftiest feature to play with is automatic manual, or manual automatic, or semi-automatic transmission - whatever you want to call it. It’s like a stick without the clutch, and kinda fun to play with.

Oh, and last but not least - help me, I’m so very in a red state. I’m a stranger in a strange land ’round here :)

It’s been a good one:

“God save us from that kind of help.” <- Rep. Barney Frank of New York, on whether John McCain’s return to Capitol Hill has helped the bailout talks.

Speaking of the bailout, what a load of crap. Sure, the best way to save the American economy is to give 700 billion dollars to the same people that played fast and loose with theirs in the beginning, and lost it all. This seems like a further extension of the trickle down idiocy that was the Reagan era.

I say give the 700 billion to the actual people that need it - the American public. Not to a few banks, not to give executives that have driven very large companies into the ground a few million dollars for their efforts. Let the foreign investors they sold out to hand them a golden parachute. I say with 700 billion dollars, you could probably just about pay off every mortgage in the country, or at least a very large number of them. Do that. Let those that are having problems surviving have one less thing to worry about. Families get to keep their homes and concentrate on more important things, and the banks get their money back to help them stave off not having enough money to cover their deposits. This seems like a win-win to me.

Of course, with the talks on the Hill falling apart, it may all go right down the crapper anyway, and everyone loses. We the people elect such great leaders.

(Actually, it may qualify for the week, but Dave Letterman’s “Hey John, need a ride to the airport?” is way way up there too. )

Today’s gem: “It’s just that you never had a chance. I only go for guys who are unavailable.”

Now, I won’t attribute that to save the person who said it from embarrassment. Also, I’m not posting this to call her out in any way. It’s just this week’s example of the story of my life, and further proof that humanity is doomed.

So I’ve been looking forward to October for a long, long while. I’ll be back in Florida, and the group I’m with will have an all exclusive tour of the NASA facility at Cape Canaveral. Sure, there’s pictures of the tour I took two years ago in the gallery, but that was the public tour. This is the tour that the general public doesn’t get access to - it’s the most behind the scenes tour they do.

Now, if that wasn’t exciting enough, there’s a launch scheduled for October. About 7 or so hours after our tour. That means that while the launch pads are off limits for the tour, pictures of a shuttle on the pad, and the potential for seeing another launch.

Today, NASA caused a full on geekgasm. You see, after the Columbia disaster, there was a new rule put in the regs. Any shuttle mission not going to the International Space Station had to have a rescue shuttle in the wings ready to go in case a rescue mission was needed. However, every mission since Columbia has gone to the ISS, where a crew could dock and hang out until a rescue could occur. Not the Atlantis mission in October (it’s called STS-125, by the way, and is the 124th launch of a shuttle) - its headed to the Hubble telescope, where it’ll make a few repairs and upgrades that will keep it flying and workable another 5 or 6 years. It’s also the last non-ISS mission on the books before the end of the shuttle program (the 3 remaining shuttles are slated for retirement in 2010.)

I’ve been wondering for a long while now where a shuttle in the wings would reside - on the other launch pad, or in the VAB waiting to roll out. The launch process puts out a very, very large amount of energy, specifically sound waves. You can hear the launch for a long way off, and nothing is allowed within a 3 mile perimeter of the pad during a launch. The water sprayed on the pad isn’t for heat, it’s to dampen the sound - the reverb off of the pad without it would shake a shuttle to pieces. The energy is so great that the vibrations is causes instantly vaporizes liquids inside a mile and a half (or so) - and I mean all liquids - like the blood in your veins. It’d be a heck of a way to go, but you’d get a good look before you went.

Oh, by now, you’re starting to wonder where the geekgasm comes in. So a few hours ago NASA sends out a press release (yes, I subscribe to them) that answers one of my questions. The Shuttle Endeavour (the one I saw launch back in… 2003, I think) is rolling out to the other launch pad next week, and will be sitting there while Atlantis takes off. Apparently the scene from Armageddon I’ve said for years wasn’t possible just might be. That’s right - my 8 GB memory card for my camera is gonna be full of two shuttles ready to go at once. To my knowledge it’s the only time in history that it’s happened. Then, to watch one of them launch again? I’m gonna be in geek heaven. Now, if only the launch was during the day… oh well, small price to pay for witnessing history, I guess.

So stay tuned for pictures and the post-Florida recap.

Jon Stewart is still my hero: